Your Opinion

Learn To Paint

It's a secret ambition
of many people to learn to paint but most people never follow through this dream
because they believe it is too difficult, that painting requires some secret skill
that only a few people possess. This is rubbish. Anyone can learn to paint. Painting
is just a skill that can easily be mastered with patience and practice.

The perfect way to learn to paint is to get instruction from a master. This was
the way that the old masters learned. They did long apprenticeships with known
experts. Today this isn't possible for most of us. The good news is there's plenty
of other ways to learn to paint.

Classes are a good way to learn
the basics of painting but not everyone thrives in a class environment and many of us
just don't have the time to enrol in and attend classes a number of days a week.
Classes usually suit retired people who can use them as a social part of their lives
as well as for learning to paint.

Classes can also be expensive.
Personally I don't enjoy classes. Because I'm busy with work commitments when I
attend classes I tend to be impatient, wanting to get to the points straight away, to
get the knowledge and go. This is not a good attitude for a class as many people want
to socialize as well as learn.

The good news today is that there
are plenty of other ways to learn to paint or learn to draw without leaving your
home. I have learned a lot by watching painting instructional dvds. I find these a
great source of information and I love being able to practice the techniques at
home.

When using dvds it's important that you structure your
learning methods. For example if you are learning to paint in watercolours then the
first thing to learn is how to do a watercolour wash. So you would get a dvd that
teaches watercolour washes. From there you would move onto the next skill to learn.

A good way to ensure you structure your home study is to look at
the syllabus of a home study course and follow it.

If you don't
want to buy individual dvds then you can enrol in a home study painting course. These
are excellent value and are usually taught by respected artists. Using the internet
you can send your work to the teacher who will critique it for you giving you some
good feedback.

There's no reason why you can't learn to paint
today, the resources are available for anyone. Online courses are not too expensive
when you compare them with classes and dvds are cheap to buy and full of great
information for the budding artist.

Paul is
the owner of the online art store Arts crafts & Hobbies. He is also
the author of the blog Art Product reviews which discusses art products and has some
wonderful tutorials on drawing and painting. For two great free art books go here
now; Free Art Books